Today, we face many challenges in our daily lives that demand the expenditure of valuable resources. These challenges can be more easily disposed with the aid of advantages. Generally, an advantage is a feature or element within an environment that one is not intended to have or does not normally have access to that provides an edge in overcoming a presented challenge. In the context of an observed environment, these advantages are environment features or elements that help to better navigate and exist within the observed environment.
Advantages are conventionally realized through rigorous physical and/or mental training, by employing advanced instruments, or, for the non-scrupulous, through bribery, cheating, and deception. The latter category has allowed for some significant events in our society today. For example, some ventures, and even some governments can base their existence on the capitalization of advantages. Subscribing to social conventions, the use of these advantages is traditionally kept secret in fear of retaliation, reprimand, and rebuke from non-sanctioning parties. Considering the benefits that may be realized from the use of advantages, if given the choice, most would employ advantages in their environments to assist them with their daily challenges.
Human nature dictates our need to achieve. This is apparent in the field of gaming. Gaming enthusiasts are willing to pay for the opportunity to obtain an advantage. This is especially the case where the player has spent a significant amount of time and energy in overcoming various challenges within the game to reach the desired goal of completing the game, but is unable to overcome a particular posed challenge. In such a circumstance, the player will likely be willing to pay for the ability to obtain an advantage or advantages to overcome this posed challenge. In recent years, gaming enthusiasts have enjoyed a number of action, action-adventure, adventure, and strategy games, such as, DOOM®, QUAKE®, AGE OF EMPIRES®, ULITMA ONLINE®, etc. The object of these games is to wage battle with various beings in an effort to win a war or improve your standing within the game and/or gaming community. These games are typically structured such that the player is given access to increasingly superior weaponry and/or skills as they advance through increasingly difficult game levels. It would be advantageous to gamers to have access to these superior weapons, or alternatively, additional ammunition for their existing weaponry, and/or superior skills earlier in the gaming experience.
The concept of obtaining advantages may be extended beyond the gaming context. For example, consumers may be willing to pay to obtain advantages, such as, procuring a more preferred seat on an airplane, train, or bus; or obtain additional golf strokes during a golf match. Further, the concept of obtaining advantages includes obtaining unfair advantages. An unfair advantage is generally a legally recognized advantage that confers an inequitable benefit to the requesting party (e.g. a person pays an additional “special” tax to a municipality and in turn receives a prime parking spot in the heart of the downtown municipality). Today, however, there are no comprehensive systems and methods for the creation, integration, and transaction of advantages. Interested participants are typically relegated to searching for free shortcuts and tricks (i.e. advantages) in on-line chat rooms and bulletin boards or to purchase and subscribe to publications. For example, in the gaming world, gamers may spend as much time and resources obtaining advantages as they do actually playing the games. Few advantages are contemplated, let alone offered to interested participants in non-computing and partial computing environments. Generally, interested participants are left to face obstacles in these environments without the aid of any advantage. For example, an interested participant, not afforded the sanctioned ability to speed in a rural community and is caught speeding, may have to pay a hefty fine and/or expend significant time and energy in challenging the speeding offense. As a result, the interested participant expends a great deal of resources to face obstacles that could otherwise be overcome.
From the foregoing it can be appreciated that there exists a need for comprehensive systems and methods that allow for the creation, integration, and transaction of advantages in computing, partial computing and non-computing environments. By providing a system and methods that allow for the creation, integration, and transaction of recognized and sanctioned advantages and unfair advantages, challenges may be more easily resolved freeing valuable resources.